Looking at the .pdf for that Art amp it says the fan is "speed controlled". I would therefore bet it would not even start up very often for monitoring duties?

The speakers have a sensitivity of 92dB/W/mtr and so you will only need 1 or2 watts to produce the 'magic 85dB SPL' at a nearfield distances. If you 'give it the beans' and produce 100dB you are not going to hear ANY fan unless it is faulty!

In any case, the Book says the fan is "very quiet". If it ain't, ship it back at 'em.

ef37a wrote:In any case, the Book says the fan is "very quiet". If it ain't, ship it back at 'em.

Dave.

I think I am going to take a punt on the ART SLA-1. The grumbles about the noisy fan are all from 2011 at the most recent so they may have fixed it by now. Can always swap the fan over anyway or return it to Thommans....

For the price of an SLA1 you could also buy yourself a couple of Hypex UCD180 modules, the matching power supply and the wiring looms to build yourself an extremely high quality amp. You would still need to find a case - when I built mine I used a case from a faulty Quad 405 amplifier.

James Perrett wrote:For the price of an SLA1 you could also buy yourself a couple of Hypex UCD180 modules, the matching power supply and the wiring looms to build yourself an extremely high quality amp. You would still need to find a case - when I built mine I used a case from a faulty Quad 405 amplifier.

I still have a broken Beyerdynamic Blueprint amp, which was great for years so I could possibly use that for a case...

I am a semi-pro musician rather than an electronics engineer so that option, although cost effective, is probably more trouble than it is worth for me. I am tempted though and I am at day release college studying civil engineering so I could maybe ask one of the electronic engineering students to put an amp together for me?

I have emailed ART, to ask about the fan noise, so will see what comes back.

thefruitfarmer wrote:... so I could maybe ask one of the electronic engineering students to put an amp together for me?

It was more a mechanical engineering job for me - drilling holes and putting in mounting pillars. There are a couple of crimp connections to be made and solder joints to the input and output connectors but all the PCB connections come ready made.

I have used ART SLA 1 amps for many years. I currently have 3 of them. It is a good amp at a good price. I use them for several things, including a small PA (running two amps, each in bridged mono for a stereo output.) Unless I am really driving them, the fans are on minimum and are very quiet, but not silent. One SLA 1 that I purchased second hand had the fan removed. It was used for studio monitors and I was told that the fan is redundant to the ample cooling fins unless the amp is driven hard. All this to say that it will likely work for you.

jimjazzdad wrote:I have used ART SLA 1 amps for many years. I currently have 3 of them. It is a good amp at a good price. I use them for several things, including a small PA (running two amps, each in bridged mono for a stereo output.) Unless I am really driving them, the fans are on minimum and are very quiet, but not silent. One SLA 1 that I purchased second hand had the fan removed. It was used for studio monitors and I was told that the fan is redundant to the ample cooling fins unless the amp is driven hard. All this to say that it will likely work for you.

Great, thanks for the reply. That's the response I was hoping for when I posted this thread.

It has enough power to drive the 100 watt speakers and the sound quality is good, especially considering the price.

I would have said that those reporting a noisy fan across the net might have just been unlucky enough to get a model where the fan was faulty and they are few and far between too. If the fan does kick in when the amp is at a high volume it's unlikely to be a problem given the volume of the music.

For the money I can recommend this power amp to drive your monitors, for those of you like me who do not have powered speakers.